Afghan opium production rises

UN believes extra funds used to aid Taliban insurgents

October 31, 2003|By Vanessa Gezari, Special to the Tribune.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan's opium production grew in 2003, generating billions of dollars in revenues that are believed to be lining the pockets of warlords and funding the Taliban insurgency, Afghan and United Nations officials said Thursday.

The country's opium production increased 6 percent, from 3,400 metric tons to 3,600 metric tons, with more land cultivated and a growing number of farmers harvesting Afghanistan's most lucrative illicit crop, according to the UN's latest Afghanistan Opium Survey, released Thursday in Kabul.

Afghan opium farmers and drug traffickers netted about $2.3 billion in drug revenues in 2003, according to the report -- equal to half the country's legitimate gross domestic product and more than the amount of foreign aid given to Afghanistan this year. Afghanistan produces the opium that is refined to make three-quarters of the world's heroin, the report said.

Under the Taliban, poppy cultivation was banned and opium production fell to a low of 185 metric tons in 2001 -- about 1/20th of this year's yield. Despite a similar ban and new efforts by the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to destroy poppy fields, cultivation is spreading to provinces that have not been traditional growing areas in what the UN called a "worrying" trend.

"The approach of the Taliban administration and the approach of the present government ... is completely different," said Mirwais Yasini, head of Afghanistan's drug agency, the Counter Narcotics Directorate. "They were using inhuman means. They were chopping the hands [of growers] . . . which was not in the circle of human rights. We believe in international law, and we abide by those laws."

Poppy cultivation has been a persistent problem in Afghanistan, where the dry climate, the lack of roads to deliver goods to market and the high price of opium compared with other crops have made poppies, from which raw opium is harvested, seem a logical and sometimes necessary way for many farmers to make a living.

Yet poppy cultivation, and the money it generates, is increasingly believed to be funding Taliban attacks and violent crime here. Yasini, the Afghan drug official, said that part of the reason the Taliban banned opium production when it ruled Afghanistan was to control the market, keeping prices high and hoarding the harvest.

"The information that we have right now . . . is that many of these commanders of the Taliban that are operating are in fact cashing in drugs for weapons," said Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, chairman of the UN Sanctions Committee on Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

There are about 11,500 U.S. and coalition troops hunting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but the coalition has not viewed counternarcotics operations as part of its mission. In an interview this fall, the former commander of U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. John Vines, said the coalition supports anti-drug efforts by the Afghan government and Britain, which has the lead role in contributing to Afghanistan's drug policy.

The UN's annual Afghanistan Opium Survey is based on satellite images of growing areas and field visits. This year, the report was produced in cooperation with the Afghan government for the first time and surveyed 1,800 villages and 3,700 farms.

Although opium production grew only 6 percent since last year, the increase occurred during the first year of operations for Afghanistan's fledgling drug agency and in spite of a vigorous campaign to eradicate poppies in areas deemed safe enough for the government to enter. In some parts of the country, farmers defended their fields with guns, engaging in pitched battles with officials who came in tractors to plow over their newly planted poppies.

While cultivation of poppies declined in some key growing areas in the south and east, including Kandahar, Helmand and Nangarhar provinces, it surged in the northern province of Badakshan, which borders Tajikistan, and in the central province of Ghor, which had not previously been a major production area.

In Badakshan, where cultivation increased this year by 55 percent, Yasini, the drug official, said there were "administrative problems" as well as a ready market in neighboring Tajikistan. Karzai's government exerts little influence outside Kabul, and local commanders, governors and warlords in the provinces often benefit from allowing the growth and sale of drug crops.

Although Afghan officials blame the West -- particularly Europe, which consumes much of Afghanistan's heroin -- for fueling poppy cultivation here, Yasini said that the number of Afghans addicted to narcotics also is rising as refugees return from the slums and temporary border colonies of Iran and Pakistan.

"Drug addiction is increasing day by day and threatening our national interest and national sovereignty," Yasini said, adding that Afghanistan currently has only one psychiatric hospital and one drug rehabilitation clinic.